Thursday, October 12, 2006

Random McCrafty

You ready for it? I'm about to bombard you with Tales of Random Craftiness. Here goes...

First of all, since we love talking about our bathrooms so much (how's yours coming, anyway? Yeah... mine too.) here's the latest awesome accessory to join mine.

My friend Jan (Hi, Jan!) gave me this sweet-ass little cabinet today. It's got little tiny drawers! I love me some tiny drawers! It's currently living on the back of the toilet. Not sure where it will end up, but it's looking pretty hot right there, so it might stay. Thanks, Jan -- you rock!

She also gave me some super-cool skull beads. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to use them for, but the ideas are definitely flowing. There's a pretty big hole in the middle of the beads, so I'm thinking of maybe stringing them on some yarn and then knitting them into something. Perhaps. We'll see.

Speaking of yarn, I got some new yarn today (cause really, that's all I needed). The first batch won't get used any time soon, as I have a lot of gift knitting to do in the next couple of months. However, when I finish with that, I am planning on making myself these awesome armwarmers. This yarn is sooooo soft. It's 100% baby alpaca, which I know is no good for your sensitive skin, but I am apparently made of rubber and can therefore take it just fine.

I will be using the dark grey for the body and the light grey for the snowflake/skull. Here's hoping that it's still semi-wintery by the time I finish, although it never really snows here... a more realistic picture for me would be a raindrop turning into a skull. But I like the snowflake. And "a raindrop's chance in hell" just doesn't sound as good. (Although, now that I think about it... a raindrop wouldn't last very long in hell either.) But I digress. Kick ass yarn and kick ass arm warmers. Something to look forward to starting at the end of December. Whee!

The other yarn that I got is for a certain unnamed friend of mine who likes pink and can't tolerate wool. I'll be making a kittyville hat out of this. Not sure when that's happening, but, ah, well... you'll know when it's done. Here's the teaser shot for ya:

You think I'm finished blathering on here, but I'm NOT. Last week, we bought an IKEA Markor bookcase from someone on craigslist. I had been wanting this for awhile, as it's much prettier than the stack of milk crates we've had in the office for the past year holding my crap. (It's from IKEA but it looks like real furniture!) And yet, it's about the same size as the milk crate stack. Easy switcher-oo. Plus, buying it used, some other poor sap already put it together. Whoopie!

At any rate, the bookcase was in good condition, but it didn't have a back. So I took the opportunity to get crafty and I glued some paper from Paper-Source (of course) to some posterboard I had.

I did learn a little crafty lesson on this one: PVA glue is a bit heavy for gluing paper to posterboard. Alas, I should have used the ever-brilliant This to That for gluing advice. For "an absolutely wrinkle free result," I should have used "Yamato sticking paste." (Yes, yamato! Hee hee.) I also could have used 3M 77 spray adhesive, but I have had spray adhesive disasters in the past (don't ask), so I probably would not have done that. I had PVA, so I used it. The whole thing got really wrinkly.

Fortunately for me, it was one of those all-too-rare crafty projects where, even though it's just about the sloppiest thing I could have possibly done, it didn't make a damned bit of difference... because you can't. even. tell. I LOVE that!

I'm not sure if it's because it's inside the bookcase and hard to see in there or what, but... it looked like hell goin' down and it looks great now that it's done. Sah-weet. Here's a close-up shot of the inside. Can't see the wrinkles at all. I wish I had more projects like that. Seriously.

Whew! I told you I had a lot to say! Have you unearthed your craft space yet?

Although... the thought of you coughing up hairballs *is* pretty funny!

PS -- In answer to your question, no Jan did not make that little chest of drawers. Well, unless you count that she "made" the money to buy it at a store (okay... that sounds like she's counterfeiting. That's not what I meant: I just meant "make money" like "bring home a paycheck." I need more coffee.) She bought it at a super cool store in Oakland that is apparently *full* of DoD stuff. I'll be going there on Tuesday, so I'll give a full report.